Sunday, February 21, 2016

Aurora's Dawn - From Concept to Creation

My sister's wedding dress began with a sketch she had drawn, and her idea of a gradient orange from light to dark. I knew just which hand-dyer to look at, as she has 60 different gradient shades in 2 different fingering weight bases. So I was able to choose just the perfect colorway, Apricot, in Black Trillium's Lilt gradient. I had used her Lilt for our first Ficstitches Yarns Kit Club last year, and knew the silk blend would provide lovely drape. I was at Black Sheep Gathering a couple weeks after my sister got engaged, where I bought 3 gradient kits of yarn and coordinating beads from Bead Biz.

We had found a sewing pattern of a similar shape to her sketch, but in the end I only used the waistband pattern piece as a reference to get started. Once I had completed the waistband, in a stitch I felt would give the core of the dress some structure, I told my sister to choose how I should proceed.

Having designed several garments, I knew that I could choose one lace pattern and shape it to fit her, OR I could try piecing together different flowers, leaves, and doily patterns in the Irish Crochet style -- which I had never done before, but had been wanting to try. With complete confidence in me, my sister told me to go for the crazy lace, although by then, I only had 2 months until the big day.

Since I did not know a lot about Irish Crochet, I started with my friend Kathy White's The Go-To Book Of Irish Crochetas well as a few other motif and Japanese doily books,. Before committing to motif lace, I made up a few pieces in the lightest shade of yarn, and began stitching them together. I knew I was on the right track when I realized that the pieces I had already would be perfect for one side of the bodice, and I just kept going.I loved the idea of following a bunch of other people's patterns for motifs and seeing how I could piece them together, especially looking for patterns of leaves and flowers that would lay flat to create a smoother fabric. With a fall wedding and shades of orange yarn, my sister especially wanted to include lots of leaves, but I also found that doilies and snowflakes worked well.

I soon decided that as long as I was going to do this, I should make every single motif different! I ended up with 8 different books as reference, was soon creating variations of what I found in the books, and eventually made the motifs up as I went along. I learned a lot about how different designers start and write their circular motif patterns, and which ones worked best for me.

Having 3 small balls of each of the 5 shades in the colorway made it easy to crochet on the go (and I mean everywhere). I would work up a motif from each end of each ball for up to 6 motifs in a shade, leaving them attached to the balls to avoid wasting yarn. Then I spread them out when I was home, see how they might fit together, and start pinning them to the slip on her dressform, which I had my sister adjust to her own measurements. I was constantly surprised how well the shaping worked as I connected the random pieces and shapes together, filling in the spaces between with interconnected chain loops.I figured the dress would be as long as it was going to be, until I ran out of yarn, or time. Whichever came first.

After several years of needing to write patterns for everything I make, allowing myself the freedom to try various patterns, play with how to make it all fit together, and see it turn out even better than I had imagined was remarkable. We made a few changes from my sister's original sketch due to the limitations of working with yarn, but she certainly seemed happy with the results. This was certainly a labor of love, but I hope to find reasons to do more of this type of designing in the future, freeform rather than structured.

For more pictures of the finished dress, check out yesterday's post. I have been told that the photos do not do it justice, so this month, "Aurora's Dawn" is Going On Tour!The dress was on display a couple weeks ago in the Bead Biz booth at Madrona, last weekend in the Black Trillium booth at Stitches West, in a couple weeks we will be doing a Trunk Show/Book Signing/Make'n'Take at Happy Knits in Portland during the Rose City Yarn Crawl, and we will have booths at various PNW shows later this year.

14 comments:

This is utterly gorgeous! So do I understand correctly that you made stand-alone motifs and then pinned and pieced them together and added filler stitches where needed? How would I go about emulating you? Or will you write a pattern/recipe down the road? (I would totally buy it!) I crocheted a dress in DMC pearl cotton back in the 70s, but nothing nearly as beautiful as this!!!!

Thank you! Yes, that is more or less the technique. It would be a hard pattern to write, and most of the motifs came from other people's books so not one I would write.

However, I highly recommend any classes or books by Myra Wood. I took a motif joining class from her several years ago, and used some of those skills in the process. But she now has a class on Craftsy which is likely just what you need to get started: http://www.craftsy.com/instructors/myra-wood

Thank you for sharing this! It's a really beautiful dress.One of the best I have ever seen on ravelry. I would love to try it but I am scared as I really do like structure. I am worried that I won't get the pieces to fit right or look right.

Ahhh, that's what scares me! I can't stop thinking about this dress. I just adore everything about it. The graduating colour works so beautifully too. I am going to check out your suggestions for the Irish crochet books and instructors. If ever I do attempt to do an Irish crochet dress I will let you know.

Just wondering what technique did you use for the beads? I can't actually see them in the picture unfortunately. It's great that your dress went on tour for others to admire it and be inspired. I wish this dress could tour Australia so I could see it!!

I used several different techniques for the beads, depending on how I wanted them to lay. A few motifs I added them after. Others I pulled onto the yarn as I went. And the bottom edging I prestrung and pulled up a bead when I needed it.

It was such an intimate moment and you could really feel the love and energy in the place. Our ceremony at Seattle Wedding venues was the most beautiful and romantic ceremony I could have ever expected (and all our guests made sure to tell us they felt the same way once it was over!).

About Me

Crochet Designer, Instructor, and Author. Professional member of CGOA and TNNA. My children are my muses, inspiring many of my designs. This blog began with our NICU blanket project, donating in memory of my first daughter. Over time it has become about all things crochet, my designs, and crafting with my kids.
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